


The High Shelf

by lucyrne (theungenue)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Don’t copy to another site, Drunken Confessions, Eavesdropping, F/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 02:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19781545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theungenue/pseuds/lucyrne
Summary: Bethany's nighttime reading is interrupted when an inebriated Hawke and Varric return from a night out. Unbeknownst to the men, she overhears some interesting things about Varric's love life.





	The High Shelf

**Author's Note:**

> Short and sweet prompt fill for "Overhearing they have feelings for you."

The estate’s front door swung open with a bang. Bethany could not see the doorway from her loveseat in the library’s upper landing, but she could hear her older brother stumble inside while Varric tripped after him. They were boisterous and giggly, sure signs that their emergency drinking session after Hawke and Anders’ latest row went incredibly well—not in the sense that they had resolved Hawke’s romantic discord, but in that they had gotten absolutely pissed.

Hawke noisily removed pieces of armor and dropped them on the ground with a loud clatter, while Varric shushed him with the subtlety of a heaving druffalo.

“Don’t wake your sister,” Varric repeated in an obnoxious stage whisper. “She’s sleeping. Shhhhhhh!”

“ _You_ shhhhhh!” Hawke replied. There was another thump—probably Hawke shedding his cuirass right in the doorway. “Maker’s breath, I’m so hungry I could eat a dragon raw. You want a snack?” The two of them chattered on, their disembodied laughter floating throughout the mansion as they moved from the vestibule into the kitchen to rustle up something to eat.

Unseen with her book, Bethany snuggled deep into the loveseat’s cushions and turned the page. Those two could be so ridiculous. She considered going downstairs to say hello, if only to see Varric briefly before he left, but as a wistful affection rose up within her, she shook her head at herself. No, it would be better to just stay put. An unrequited crush didn’t give her license to barge in on their fun uninvited.

Bethany fell back into her story for a while, only taking vague notice of the laughter resounding from the kitchen. Eventually the boys emerged, buoyant as ever as they settled down beside the downstairs fireplace. Judging from the tearing and chewing sounds Bethany heard every once in a while, they had found the baguette she had bought at the market earlier that day and were eating through it chunk by chunk.

Their talk of how Hawke could make up with Anders bored Bethany, for this was a common topic in the household, but then she heard something interesting.

“Varric, I wish I was like you,” Hawke said, his words clumsy from chewing a mouthful of bread.

“Everybody does, Hawke,” Varric replied in a drawn out drawl.

“I wish I was stone. Like, inside.”

“Uh, you mean in a dwarfy way? Like you want to be a dwarf?”

“No, I mean in a romance-y way. Like I want my heart to be stone. Stone-hearted. Impervious to love’s wayward arrows. A fortress none may breach, no matter how cute their arse.”

Bethany paused her reading, waiting for Varric’s snappy comeback, only when the dwarf spoke again, he sounded a little confused.

“You think I’m stone-hearted?”

“And stone-loined,” Hawke added. He audibly swallowed his food. “Balls of granite. I’d get drunk far less frequently if I was more like you. Then again, I’d far less titillating dreams. Double-edged shiv, that. What the hell is that face for?”

There was a long pause. Bethany craned her neck to peer over the landing, but didn’t have a good view of either of their faces. She settled back down and tried recommitting herself to her book, to no avail.

“I don’t think of myself as stone-hearted,” Varric said, tripping a little over his words.

Hawke chuckled. “How does Thedas’ most literary dwarf think of himself?”

“Like that bottle of red on the highest shelf back at the Hanged Man. The one so expensive, Corff wouldn’t tell us how much it cost. And then when Isabela climbed up and stole the bottle so we could finally try some—”

Her brother made a loud retching sound. “It tasted like the fucking taint.”

“It was corked to shit!” Varric quieted his own voice before he continued. “Anyway, that’s me. I look good on the shelf, but taste bad in the glass. So my heart’s not made of stone. I just have the common sense to stay put on my high shelf and enjoy the view.”

“Who corked you?”

“I did.”

“Oh.”

_Oh,_ Bethany echoed in her head. She knew Varric had long removed himself from the realm of romance, but like her brother she had assumed the dwarf had simply lost interest, or he was keeping a candle burning for someone else. A little sad for things to work out that way, given the hopes her own heart harbored in secret, but she knew better than to dwell on such wishes; sometimes, one had to love what they had instead of yearn for what they didn’t.

That Varric might view himself as tainted - ‘corked’ - had never occurred to her. He always seemed so unflappable. Impervious to love’s wayward arrows, like her brother said.

“Any bottles of ladywine to keep you company on that high shelf?” Hawke asked. “A smooth mead perhaps?”

Bethany dropped the pretense of reading and tilted her head to one side to better hear the conversation downstairs.

“Hawke, what are we, twelve? I’m not telling you who I like-like. And keep your voice down before you wake up the entire block.”

They quibbled for a while, Hawke’s stubborn desire to make Varric open up matched only by Varric’s stubborn desire to make Hawke shut up. However, alcohol must have severely weakened the dwarf’s resolve, for his normally iron-clad resistance to revealing his own secrets soon crumbled.

“There is somebody I keep tabs on,” Varric finally admitted.

Hawke snorted and exclaimed, “That’s Merchant’s Guild code for being desperately in love, isn’t it?”

“Shhhh! You’ll wake Sunshine if you keep braying like boozed up horse.”

“Give me a straight answer and I’ll consider using my inside voice.”

Should Bethany go to bed? This conversation was clearly for Hawke’s ears only, not hers, and the subject matter would only upset her. Bethany understood Varric didn’t return her feelings - or even know of their existence - but did she have the stomach to sit there and listen while he talked of the person he _did_ have feelings for? However, curiosity was a dangerous, powerful thing. She remained rooted to the loveseat, eager to hear every word, even if they stung.

“It really did start with just keeping an eye out for this person,” Varic began. “Checking up on her, seeing if she was okay. She had a rough time for a while. Your boyfriend’s explodey shenanigans didn’t help.”

“Wars and explosions do inconvenience a budding romance,” Hawke said sagely.

“So I kept tabs,” Varric continued. “Slept better at night knowing there was at least one good person out there, living and breathing. Couldn’t think too hard about it, what with all the demons crawling up my ass.”

“Demons,” Hawke agreed. “ _Terrible_ for romance.”

“When I finally saw her again, uh…” He chuckled to himself, his voice warm with affection. “Knocked me off my feet a little bit. I got all tingly.”

“In the heart or loins?”

“ _Everywhere_.”

Bethany’s insides pulled and twisted painfully. Eavesdropping was a bad idea. A stupid, stupid, bad idea. She closed her book, intent on sneaking to her room and ending this self-inflicted torture, but when the guys starting speaking again, her curiosity and bad judgement won out. She stayed.

“Ah, love’s gentle tingle,” Hawke said downstairs with a theatrical sigh. “That’s how you know you’re in deep. The real question is, what are you doing about it?” Varric said nothing aloud, but he must have replied with a silent gesture or expression, for Hawke scoffed, “Seriously? You coward.”

“Hawke, I’m on a shelf.”

“You put yourself there!”

“For good reason!”

There was a smacking sound, a crunch of bread snapping in two, and then an aggrieved dwarven swear. After another smack, Bethany saw a piece of bread fly through the air.

Her brother’s voice rang out loudly enough to shake the chandelier. “By your own admission, you corked yourself and you’re doing it again—”

“Shhhhh!” Varric protested. “Your sister—”

“Who cares? Bethany’s not—”

“ _I_ care!”

“And why is—” Hawke stopped short. He made a soft ‘ah’ sound. “Oh. Oh I _see_. You care. You care a _great_ deal.”

The entire mansion seemed to tense in the ensuing silence. Bethany held her breath, her heart hanging suspended inside her ribcage, waiting for what the dwarf would say next.

“Yeah,” Varric finally replied. “I do.”

Bethany lay back on the loveseat and stared up at the ceiling, her body immobilized while her mind raced. The person Varric kept tabs on. The one he thought of throughout his time away. The reason he did not think himself stone-hearted. That person...was _her?!_

She couldn’t even begin to process this information before the men started taking their leave.

“On second thought,” Hawke said, his boots scuffing against the hardwood floor, “I don’t want to be like you. That shelf of yours sounds miserable. I’m going to find Anders and smooth everything over. Wanna come?”

“I exist to sort out your love life,” Varric said. The chair creaked as the dwarf rose to his feet. “The second you start ogling Blondie’s ass all wantonly, I’m out of there.”

The front door squealed back open. As Varric and Hawke made their way out of the estate in a clamor of footsteps, their voices grew more muted. Bethany strained to catch a few last threads of conversation.

Hawke clicked his tongue. “In that case, maybe you ought to stick around here. Keep tabs while I’m gone, at least until Beth’s asleep.”

“She’s already asleep.”

“No she’s not. Bethany’s reading on the landing, like she always does before bed.” Hawke laughed. “I tried to tell you.”

“...you’re shitting me.”

The door swung shut again, enveloping the house in a blanket of silence.

Bethany lay still for a while. Once she was certain neither Varric nor Hawke would barge back inside, she found a pillow, pressed it to her face, and indulged in a delighted scream.


End file.
